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UK - LMC Audio has announced the passing of Steve 'Bunty' King, aged 58, on Wednesday 17 October 2012, after a long battle with cancer. The company sends its deepest condolences to wife Janice and all their family.

Steve started at pro audio sales company LMC Audio in 1996, after an illustrious career in the concert touring rental market with Entec Sound & Light and then Dimension Audio. He quickly applied his no-nonsense approach to Export Sales, mastering many a tricky language in 30 seconds flat in the days before email and auto-translation.

In 2000 he was appointed London sales manager, and enjoyed fruitful and lively relationships with hundreds of customers, suppliers and staff alike. He was responsible for helping many a youngster find their industry feet, building on his

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USA - The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd built their first sanctuary in downtown Reno in 1951. Over the years the church's congregation has grown steadily, straining the limits of their small facility. Now, after more than 60 years the church has been rewarded with a new 500-seat worship center, directly adjacent to the original sanctuary.

The new facility is big, bright and airy, with an open feel and modern audio and video systems, including a pair of Iconyx IC Live digitally steered line array systems from Renkus-Heinz. As Scott Schmidt of Reno-based JC Productions explains, they were fortunate to have the room's acoustics working for, rather than against them.

"The architect who designed the space has done a number of traditional sanctuaries, and really did a fantastic job," says Schmidt. "Most of the walls are not parallel, and there's a sloped ceilin

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USA - To light indie pop band Foster the People, lighting designer Zach Matusow used his theatrical story telling background, his time spent under the watchful eye of Martha Stewart, his chops cut from lighting bands for Live Nation, and Chauvet Professional gear.

Nearly 40 pieces of Chauvet Professional fixtures accompanied the band on its recent tour, supporting its debut studio album Torches. The bulk of which, 16 Chauvet Professional COLORado Batten 144 Tour linear wash lights, lit the 60ft curved backdrop illustrated in the same vein as the album art. Or more accurately, helped tell the story of the tour.

"The backdrop was kind of the glue of the set and the world of our stage," said Matusow, who worked closely with set designer Trevor Stirlin Burk for this reinvigorated, reinterpreted last leg of Foster the People's 15-month tour. "After the band sk

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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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UK - The new official website for the forthcoming Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Show 2014 is now live, the organisers have announced.

Visitors and exhibitors can now visit the site (www.acrshow.co.uk) to see the latest news and developments on the event, the only national exhibition dedicated to the air conditioning and refrigeration industry, which takes place at the NEC, 11-13 February 2014.

People can register via the website to receive regular updates on the show, including the latest exhibitors confirming stands, planned technology launches, visitor attractions and the hugely popular technical and business seminar programme.

Building on the success of this year's launch event, the show has the backing of major industry organisations, including the Institute of Refrigeration (IOR), the British Refrigeration Association (BRA), the Federation of Environmental Trades A

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USA - New York is the city that never sleeps, and the tiny island of Manhattan has never been able to contain the city's buzz. Just across the river, hip new neighbourhoods spring up like dandelions - once-gritty enclaves like Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant are now home to the trendy elite. As locals are fond of pointing out, these areas have one thing Manhattan lacks: breath-taking views of the Manhattan skyline.

New York's newest peripheral gem is Long Island City. Just a subway stop away in Queens, this aging warehouse district is now buzzing with nightlife, eateries, and fashionable hotels.

And the Z Hotel is a prime example; within months of its grand opening the hotel boasts a 90 per cent occupancy. This former factory has been redesigned from the ground up, with chic décor from its airy rooftop bar to the intimate basement lounge and restaurant. Both venues

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Germany - Berlin's enchanting Theater des Westens is currently playing host to a stage musical production of Polanski's Tanz de Vampire (Dance of the Vampires) with libretto by Dr Michael Kunze and music composed by the legendary Jim Steinmann of Meatloaf fame. In keeping with the show's lavish staging, a TiMax Tracker performer tracking system and TiMax SoundHub-S32 delay-matrix have been employed to create authentic vocal localisation and immersive surround sound effects.

Sound designer Thomas Strebel from Swiss event specialists audiopool specified TiMax processing and automation having used it extensively in musical theatre productions across Europe. In a first for Strebel he also chose Turbosound Flex Array for his primary vocal reinforcement and music systems, having been introduced to the product by Robin Whittaker, director of TiMax developers Out Board, who was a

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Italy - Few internationally renowned artists begin holding regular concerts at over 70 years of age but, since 2001, legendary soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, who began his career over 50 years ago, has directed his music before spellbound audiences in venues such as Radio City Music Hall, Verona Arena, Royal Albert Hall, the Kremlin, the Vatican's Nervi Hall, the UN General Assembly and St. Mark's Square in Venice.

For one of the 'maestro's' most recent concerts, staged on Rimini promenade, in a square named after Federico Fellini, Morricone's long-time FOH and recording engineer Fabio Venturi and monitor engineer Andrea Tesini helmed DiGiCo SD7 consoles, mixing genre-crossing music performed by an orchestra, rock band, chorus and solo soprano.

Venturi explains, "My aim is to get as close to the sound audiences heard when they saw the films (which include Sergio Leo

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USA - By blending traditional bluegrass technique with modern songwriting themes, Boston based group, Della Mae, brings a new and fresh perspective to their music. When the members of the band decided to step up the quality of the group's live performances and achieve more mobility on stage, they chose DPA Microphones d:vote 4099 instrument microphones to make this happen.

Dedicated to crafting exquisite American roots music in the tradition of such greats as Willie Nelson, Del McCoury, Leon Russell and Laurie Lewis, not to mention Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, the members of Della Mae sought out the DPA mics because they knew the gear would give them maximum mobility on stage and bring out the best sound from their instruments. The band members - Celia Woodsmith on vocals, Jenni Lyn Gardner on mandolin, Kimber Ludiker on fiddle, Courtney Hartman on guitar and Shelby Means o

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USA - Thirty years on and Def Leppard is still one of the most important bands in rock music. Over 100m albums sold, a catalogue of rock anthems and a reputation for spectacular live shows attest to that.

The band has always had a loyal following in the US and has just wrapped up a Rock of Ages summer tour there with lighting design by Kenji Ohashi. Kenji's design used the Union Jack as its main theme and lit by a mostly Martin Professional lighting system supplied by Upstaging.

"It has been another great year of touring with Def Leppard," says Paul Costa of Upstaging, who have been supplying Def Leppard tours for years. "It was a pleasure to work with Kenji and the whole Def Leppard production."

For the summer 2012 tour Upstaging supplied 46 MAC Auras, 28 MAC III Profiles, 36 MAC 2000 Wash XBs, 8 MAC 2000 Beam XBs, 42 Stagebar 54s, and 30 Atomic 3

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USA - The Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple Dharma Center's mission is to promote peace and tranquility throughout the world, so it comes as no surprise that they embraced an elegant yet high-tech approach to upgrading their AV systems. Working with local system designer Tim McFarland of American Music, the Dharma Center chose the new Line 6 StageScape M20d smart mixing system to bring improved quality and ease of use to their presentations.

"After learning their needs, I thought the StageScape M20d was a good fit for the Dharma Center," says American Music owner Tim McFarland. "The system offers all this great technology, but without a big learning curve, which is important since they don't have any professional guys on staff. When I described the system to them in one of our meetings, they thought it would be perfect, so we went for it."

Greg Tsudama, a memb

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Austria The most successful German-language musical of all time celebrates its 20th anniversary in the famous Viennese theatre, the Raimund Theater. Having played to over 8.5 million people across 11 different countries, Elisabeth tells the gripping story of Austria's attractive Empress Sisi. The occasion has merited a brand new sound design by world famous sound designer and engineer, Thomas Strebel, with the addition of eight APG MC2 loudspeakers designed for high intelligibility vocal reproduction following the initial installation of an APG SMX15-based loudspeaker system in 2010.

The original design by Matthias Reithofer for the musical Ich war noch niemals in New York was an A-B configuration based on SMX15s and MX1 delays with TB118S and TB218S subs. The idea of using an A-B system to separate the mix was to avoid the summing of microphone signals that can le

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Germany - Aquanario, Europe's biggest mobile water show, celebrated its official premiere on 17 August in Berlin, Germany. For 10 nights, no less than 45.000 visitors saw an impressive show with water, lasers, fire, lights, pyrotechnics and music. Rock Solid Lighting created the lighting design and was responsible for programming and the lighting control system.

From 17 to 26 August, the Zentraler Festplatz of Berlin was transformed into a magical stage, featuring Europe's biggest water show. Flash Art Show Productions' director Markus Katterle and Rock Solid Lighting's lighting designer Jens Hillenkotter created an extraordinary 50-minute performance with 500.000 litres of water, lasers, fire, lights and pyrotechnics synchronously to the music.

From the very early stages of the show, Markus Katterle and Jens Hillenkotter decided to use the V:3D software of Syncronorm.

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USA - London-based projection artist Ross Ashton was commissioned by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire to produce an exclusive Son et Lumière show celebrating the 50th anniversary of its high profile Hopkins Centre for the Arts.

The show Five Windows was based around stunning large format projections highlighting the history, achievements and impact of the Hopkins Centre, which also houses the Ivy League College's drama, music, film and studio arts departments.

Giant images were projected on to the magnificent front façade of the Hopkins Centre, which was designed by architect Wallace Harrison and opened in 1962.

The College approached Ashton who has completed several prestigious projected art installations in the US within the last three years.

He comments, "It was an amazing opportunity to work with one of the most prominent educational institutio

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USA - St Joseph Parish in Needham, MA has been a part of this community for more than 100 years, beginning with a humble wooden church in 1894 and expanding its campus over the years to include a convent, elementary and middle schools, and a range of ministries. In 1966, having outgrown its existing sanctuary, the church completed construction of their current building.

The space has served them well for more than four decades, though there have always been sonic challenges. The room's architecture provides good acoustics for the traditional choir and organ arrangements, but the sanctuary's spoken word intelligibility left a bit to be desired.

"It's a rectangular space with a flat ceiling and lots of right angles," explains Zeke Zola, install manager at Boston Light and Sound, the company behind the design-build project. The walls are all brick and there's minimal ac

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South Africa - With a reputation of putting on superb musicals for the past 35 years, the Ligbron Academy of Technology for high school students in Ermelo outdid themselves with the production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

For a sprinkle of magic, Ligbron called on the services of JSF Productions for the full technical production. All equipment was hired in from MGG Productions.

"The show was very theatrical, it is after all a Disney musical," commented Johan Ferreira of JSF Productions, technical director, designer and operator. "I did months of research and design to be able to recreate the Disney enchantment on an extremely tight budget."

Ligbron usually host their musicals in a charming and well equipped theatre in Ermelo. With the venue not being available for this year's production, it was held in the school hall instead. "The stage

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Finland - Let's Dance Finland is the spin-off of the highly popular British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide. Currently the format has been licensed to over 42 territories. As a result, the series became the world's most popular television programme among all genres in 2006 and 2007, according to the magazine Television Business International, reaching the Top 10 in 17 countries.

Running for the seventh season, Finland's version received a lighting and set design by Mikki Kunttu who again relied on an MA control system consisting of two x grandMA2 light and an MA NPU (Network Processing Unit).

Kunttu says about his design, "It is the third season running with this set design. Although the lighting setup changes from season to season, the main principles stay the same. It's a show with a lot of glitter and eye-cand

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UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light has recently become the exclusive distributer of Altman Lighting products in the UK. Altman, innovators of theatrical, architectural, film and video lighting, will join the family of exclusive brands entrusted to White Light, based in London.

"We are very proud to announce this next step, which continues our long relationship with Altman," commented Peter Threadgold, White Light's sales director. White Light has been an Altman Lighting dealer for many years.

Mr. Threadgold continued, "Altman's commitment to manufacturing inventive, high quality equipment is a perfect match for our aim to deliver superior products and service. The fixtures and accessories have always been well-suited for the varied needs of our customers across multiple fields." With shared values and a customer focus, both Altman and White

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UK - Clay Paky's President and CEO Pasquale Quadri presented the lighting industry charity Light Relief with a substantial donation at this year's glittering Knight of Illumination Awards in London.

Quadri, who is the 'Paky' - a shortened version of his first name - in Clay Paky, handed the cheque for £5,000 to Light Relief's Rick Fisher to help the charity provide practical support to lighting designers experiencing extreme financial hardship.

Clay Paky is already heavily involved with the lighting industry, not just as a manufacturer of much specified entertainment lighting fixtures but also as a main sponsor and organiser of the KOI Awards and as corporate sponsor of Light Relief.

Pio Nahum, chief commercial officer for Clay Paky discusses, "Without the lighting designers who use our equipment so imaginatively and who willingly feedback to our R&D Clay Paky cou

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Switzerland - Schertler, the Swiss manufacturer of contact microphones and acoustic amplification systems, continues to grow its international distributor network with recent appointments in seven territories.

Five new distributors have been named in Europe: GVI Vertriebs GmbH of Freistadt is now the Schertler distributor for Austria. Netherlands-based PB Music BV has been appointed to represent Schertler in the Benelux. SC Sound, Vejen, is the distributor for Denmark, completing Schertler's Scandinavian line-up. IMS Distribution in Port-Mort has been appointed as the distributor for France and Waltons Music of Dublin is now handling sales in the Republic of Ireland.

In Asia, Seoul-based Soundstream Co. Ltd is the official distributor for Korea, adding to an existing network of Schertler MI and pro audio distributors in Japan, Singapore, China and Thailand. Dynamic Music, base

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Sweden - A former brewery may not seem the obvious choice for a live venue, but that is exactly the use that Stockholm's Bryggarsalen has been put to. A newly-installed Alcons Audio system ensures that the sound for live events has a crisp head and a full body. Just like a good ale, in fact.

Originally built in 1914, Stockholm's Bryggarsalen (Brewery House) ended its first incarnation as a brewery in 1970. The ensuing 40 years saw the building put to a variety of uses, until its rebirth as a live music and corporate event venue in 2010. With a restaurant and two bars complementing the event spaces, it's already extremely popular.

Bromma-based Electrosound has previously installed Alcons systems in several other Swedish venues, so the company's engineers knew that Alcons would deliver in what proved an acoustically challenging room.

Originally it contained the washbacks for b

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Europe - Martin Professional is hosting local events across Europe on an "Engineered for the Eye" roadshow tour that brings Martin directly to end users for a more detailed, personal discussion of dynamic lighting and visual solutions.

Current dates include:

Kent (30-10-2012); London (01-11-2012); London (02-11-2012); Plymouth (07-11-2012); Bristol (09-11-2012); Huddersfield (14-11-2012); Manchester (15-11-2012) Cheshire (16-11-2012) More stops to be confirmed soon.

Registration requires that Javascript is activated on your local computer. If you are having any issues with registration please send an email to roadshow@martin.com and you will be contacted shortly.

For more information and the latest news on the roadshow, visit the web address below.

(Claire Beeson)

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